Thanks for your thoughtful comment at http://sddc.blogspot.com/2008/06/im-not-edupunk.html, and this post.

Maybe it’s just me. I never “got” punk. I was raised on “both kinds of music – Country *and* Western.” I moved from the 60′s folk revival (courtesy of my older sisters who taught me PP&M and S&G early on) to the likes of Queen, Styx, and Boston in high school, to the Renaissance Festival / SCA thing in college.

Punk was, and is, alien to me. I do not identify with it. Never have.

Thanks for the “punk-to-folk” bridge links in your comment. I look forward to exploring them.

Even if all punk was violent and mindless, that doesn’t mean that punk in this context could have changed in meaning some to focus more on the energy and embrace of individual expression. Words change over time. Their meanings are at the least semi-fluid and bound by context. You might even take the word . . . say . . . “punk.”

If I call you a “punk” chances are I’m not saying your part of an anti-establishment music movement. If I say “pass that punk so I can light this roman candle” I would not like you to hand me a guy who’s mohawk is on fire. Maybe that’s not an exact parallel but it seems pretty elementary that words change and evolve and you don’t have to take all of their connotations with you to new places.

I think that’s an awesome idea, and would be a great resource. Something like that could really run the gamut, too– from pedagogical theory to classroom praxis to sharing hacks, code, mashups, etc.

Plus, it would foster community… something that’s (rather paradoxically) vital to all things DIY.

Punk was never, ever, only about anger and nihilism.

That’s an impression that comes from too many people painting with much too broad a brush, and the overstatement of the impact of the Sex Pistols.

The Ramones had an edge, but blind, dumb joy drove their music, just as often as anger.

Yes, exactly, thanks for this injection of persepctive. The Ramones were the most bubble gum punk band going. They were far more taken with the Beach Boys than some punk tradition. Moreover, the refused to tour with the Sex Pistols, because they didn;t want to be seen as hostile and generally vicious.

I don;t understand how people can take to general ideas from some nebulous history of punk to explain an idea, rather than the opposite. The idea is more like a zeitgiest that suggests something about a word, rather than defining it, so when folks try to nail it down with very shoddy and general detaqils from the complex history of punk, it seems absurd.

As for your DIY fascination, you might be interrested to know that this all started three months ago when Brian Lamb and I were talking via IM about a few things and the term EDUPUNK was born. I thought it would be a cool idea for a DIY online zine for Educational Technology folks who are going it alone and want to feature work or do it themselves within a community for some help and direction. I bough the domains (edupunk.org and .net) with that idea in mind, but then The Glass Bees post hiot, and the whole thing just took on a life of its own —bizarre.

But if when this all calms down, you may want to think about the zine element. It is gonna take a community of folks, and I still really want to push it.